House of Gold (22 page)

Buzz was amazed.
"How did you know what size jacket to buy me?"

"I just knew."

"That's not very specific."

The Man kept his eyes on the gentle swells in front of the boat.

"As horrible as the world seems right now," the Man stated, "we're already in the new springtime. The Lord will speak clearly in the hearts of His children from now on."

He seemed to be speaking to the lake, not to Buzz, with a certainty that
was–riveting.

"But why?"

"It's not our place to question God," the Man explained, but said no more.

They traveled slowly to maximize fuel economy, and to make the least amount of noise. The journey stretched on for just over four hours–almost one hundred and forty miles. By heading directly east, the arch of the east side of Lake Erie came to meet them. The temperature had fallen below freezing,
and towards morning, the wind and the waves began to kick up. Buzz dry-heaved only twice, thankful that his last meal, a can of chicken noodle soup, had already been digested and therefore the calories had not been wasted.

+  +  +

Hurrying to avoid being seen, and with some effort, they pulled the Waverunner onto the rocky shoreline, and then into a thicket of trees. They covered it with leaves.
The sun had been up for more than an hour.

There were no homes on the waterline. The Man guessed that they were located somewhere past Erie, perhaps as far as Dunkirk, New York. Using the Man's compass, they walked southward into the woods, which was not dense, except for certain patches of thick, low pines, which they walked around, rather than fight.

"I knew we forgot something," the Man whispered.

"Wha's that?" Buzz asked breathlessly. He was limping noticeably.

"Machetes."

The two men found a deer path, and the going was easy. They soon climbed over a wire fence and crossed over an empty stretch of Route 5. They knew that Interstate 90 would not be far away now. The woods gave way to a farmer's clearing, and they saw I-90 perhaps a quarter mile in the distance. They retreated back into
the woods, then made camp. They had agreed to pass major highways only under nightfall.

While Buzz set up the tent, the Man disappeared into the woods and set his three traps. He came back. They decided they were too close to the highway to start a fire, even in daylight, and Buzz crawled into his sleeping bag. The Man sat sentry, bundled in a sleeping bag, the Ruger leaning on a large oak tree
beside him. He whispered a Rosary with Buzz, who fell asleep during the third decade. The Man finished alone, then spent the next two hours in a semi-contemplative state; alert for danger.

Alert for God.

At noon, he woke Buzz, and they switched places.

"I don't know how to use this rifle," Buzz told him.

"Shssshh, keep it down," the Man scolded him softly, shaking his head. "Just holding it might
scare away a bad apple."

With the Man asleep, Buzz tried to pray, but was distracted by the itchiness of his neck wound. He picked at the scabs under the bristly hair in fits of irritation. (Sister Regina had cut it the day before with a pair of scissors–barberhood was not her calling).

He noticed smoke coming out the chimney of the farmhouse to the east, although he saw no people come outside,
and wondered if they should drop by and say hello. The Man would not like that idea.

"No interaction with strangers, if we can help it," the Man had said, laying down the ground rules.

The hours crawled by slowly. Buzz wished for a portable Sony TV with a video player, then scolded himself for the thought. What use was it to long for something that was impossible?

Strangely enough, this gave him
hope. Videos were now impossible, but walking across the country to Mel and the boys was not. They had already come a long way in just one day. If his strength and his ankle held out, then built up (
What are we going to eat?
), the Man had estimated they could make twenty miles a day. Divided into seven hundred miles, and with no delays, that was only thirty-five days.

If I just have water, and
a morsel here and there, plus two Centrums a day, I'll make it.

He prayed out loud in a whisper. "Jesus, I trust in you." Then he tried to picture Mel and Markie and Packy and Sam and Ellie and Christopher. He regretted more than ever leaving his photographs in Bagpipe. He didn't have one picture of his family in his wallet.

As always, he prayed for his daughter Jennifer, and for her mother, Sandy.

He realized that Mel had probably already given birth, and if he and the Man made good time, and the weather got better, as it must with spring approaching, perhaps he could arrive before the baby's first smile.

This gave him hope. Yes, something to shoot for. As the sun descended an unseen stairway toward the western horizon–towards Cleveland, where Donna lived, and where he knew he would never
step foot again–he idled away his-final hour of sentry duty pondering names for his next child.

Thomas, Jude, Maximilian, Gwynne Jr.–No! Never!–Anthony, Josemaria...

All his favorite saints...

...Bernadette, Catherine, Helen, Melanie–No! Never!–Therese, Grace–yes, Grace, that was a lovely name for a girl–Grace Woodward, I like that. We'll ask Sam and Ellie to be the godparents.

Again. They were
already the godparents of Packy. (Mark and Maggie Johnson were Markie's.)

Buzz forgot to check his watch, and the Man woke up by internal alarm–"The Lord woke me up." He checked his traps, and found a rabbit. It had died while they slept, and he tied it to his belt.

They hiked across the hayfield to the interstate, which was abandoned, except for an overturned, burned-out tractor trailer about
a half mile west. The man pulled a small wire clipper from Buzz's backpack, and used it to cut the wire fences on either side of the interstate. They crossed another empty field and headed for the woods, and in another half hour, walked across Route 20, which was also abandoned, and backtracked southeast until they found their target: Route 60. There was an abandoned gas station at the intersection.
The sun was setting.

They decided to walk along the side of the road in the woods to avoid other travelers, even though they had not seen a single person for almost twenty-four hours.

Occasionally, they saw dim lights emanating from the farmhouses or homes that were located on Route 60.

"Twenty-two miles to Gerry," the Man confirmed, checking his Triple-A map. "Then we cut east into the wilds
to get to the Allegheny Reservoir."

The moon was covered by clouds, and the darkness made it difficult and slow to navigate the trees on the side of Route 60. They had trouble finding a path alongside the road. Buzz was afraid that he would injure his sore ankle by stepping on an unseen rock or fallen tree branch. It was very difficult to figure how far they had come since leaving Route 20.

"Dinner
time soon," the Man said. He had not uttered five sentences all day.

"I'm thirsty," Buzz told him. Their only canteen, last filled in Cleveland, was empty.

"Let's keep walking then," the Man suggested.

A few minutes later, they came around a lazy bend, and in a deserted stretch, heard the gurgling sound of a stream flowing down a small hill and passing beneath the road into a concrete pipe. Buzz
quickly limped over and reached down to imbibe–

"Hold on!" the Man warned.

He came over, filled the canteen, and took out a small, plastic bottle shaped like Our Lady of Lourdes; he tapped a drop of clear liquid into the canteen.

"Holy water? That's excellent," Buzz observed.

"No, bleach. Sister Regina gave me the bottle. There might be traces of holy water mixed in, though. Double protection.
Now drink."

Buzz took the canteen and drank. He felt good–hungry, but good.
I wouldn't have gotten ten miles out of Cleveland without the Man.

"Let's press on. Dinner can wait," the Man said, looking around.

"Right," Buzz agreed. He didn't want to appear weak to the Man.
Boy, my ankle is killing me.

"How come you never talk?" Buzz asked.

The Man did not answer.

Inwardly, the Man had the creeps.
He did not like this road. But he did not know why. Was it the Lord speaking to him? He wasn't sure.

But he pressed on, knowing it was taxing Buzz's ankle, thinking there was no other choice.
It's a hard world. It's a hard world,
he told himself.

Their path became more hilly. They were forced to leave the scrub and walk on the road. Buzz had developed a painful rash between his thighs.

No Johnson
& Johnson's baby powder here!

Strict silence. Just when Buzz felt that he could go no further, he spotted a cane–a real, ivory handled, walking cane!–on the shoulder of the road. It was slightly cracked, but serviceable.

They needed water; they came upon a stream. He needed help walking; he found a cane.

He half-expected to find a bottle of baby powder on the shoulder.

They came upon a sign: Sinclairville,
2 Miles. Gerry, 8 Miles.

Dinner time. Sun would come up soon. They moved away from the road, just below the top of a hill, near a rock formation–"Never camp or walk on the crest of a hill; enemies can see your silhouette even at night," said the Man–who promptly left Buzz to forage for wood.

Using the Zippo and some dried grass, they soon had a small fire going. Buzz marveled at the Man as he
quickly cut three branches to form a spit, gutted the rabbit, then cooked it for dinner, which they supplemented with one Powerbar each. The Man had stashed the bars with the gasoline at the boathouse.

The Man took sentry, they whispered their Rosary, and Buzz fell asleep despite the dull throb in his neck and his ankle, encouraged by their progress.

The Man plucked a long reed of grass with his
thin, black fingers, stripped it, then pinched it between his cheek and gum. He began to pray. One line.

Lord, we'll never make it.

Later, during Buzz's sentry shift, he dozed off. He awoke facing the barrel of a shotgun.

Chapter Ten

The Postmen

"Wake up, boy. Do you mean harm?" a voice asked Buzz, who found himself peering into the business end of a shotgun. He was wearing overalls and a thick, blue-checked shirt, and rubber boots.

It was daylight.

Buzz snapped awake. It took him a second to orient himself.
What? Who? Where am I?

"Hal!" he called out.

"Boy, you didn't answer my question," the man with the shotgun
said.

"No harm! We mean no harm!"

Buzz thrust his hands in the air. The Ruger was on the ground at his side. Shotgun Guy reached down and picked it up, then took a step back.

Hey, that's our gun!
Buzz thought.

He started praying the first words of the Saint Michael Prayer over and over again.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle...Saint Michael the Archangel...

"I'm coming
out," the Man's deep voice came from the tent. "I'm unarmed. Everyone just relax."

The Man, bent over in a catcher's crouch, stepped out of the tent, hands in the air. Buzz was amazed when he saw a relaxed, friendly smile come to his face.

"Good morning," the Man said. "Can I put my hands down? I assure you we mean no harm. We're just passing through."

Shotgun Guy didn't answer, but honored them
with a skeptical look, then turned his head halfway toward the road, yelling, "There's two of 'em, Norm!"

Buzz and the Man looked and saw a box truck on the road with
Propane America
lettered on its side.

The man who must have been Norm popped his head out of the truck, the morning sun shining off his bald pate. He looked about as old and gray as Shotgun Guy. Buzz placed them in their fifties.

Buzz found his voice. "We're just passing through, mister. Honest. My wife is stuck in New Hampshire, and we're walking there."

Buzz saw the Man roll his eyes.

"Well, it's the truth," Buzz explained to the Man, shrugging his shoulders.

Saint Michael the Archangel...

"Which way you headed?" the Shotgun Guy asked Buzz.

"South, toward Gerry," the Man answered quickly, lowering his hands. "Then east
to the reservoir. We're trying to get to Route 6 in Pennsylvania eventually."

Buzz opened his mouth and allowed the following to come out: "So if you're planning to shoot us, then shoot us. If not, and if that truck you and Norm are drivin' is really working, maybe you can take us on down to Gerry. My ankle is killing me."

Norm had worked himself most of the way up the hill.

"What's up, Larry?"

"Says they need a lift to Gerry..."

Norm smiled a big smile. He had all his teeth, and somehow Buzz knew they would be okay.
This is not a scene from Deliverance.

"They armed?" Norm asked.

Larry nodded, keeping his eyes on his quarry.

"You got any more guns?" Larry asked.

Buzz and the Man shook their heads. Buzz lowered his hands.

"No they ain't," Larry told Norm. "Not anymore."

Norm completed
the last few steps to reach them. He was wearing dungarees, and a white sweatshirt under a Buffalo Bills winter jacket. He stuck out his arm and greeted Buzz and the Man with a handshake and a cordial smile. Buzz noticed Norm wince as he straightened up, and then favor his weight on his right foot.

"Things have been confusing around here. We're on patrol. I'm Norman Bates–I know, I know, just
like the movie–and I'm sheriff of Gerry. We had to make a run up today to get Mrs. Halberstram. She's ailing, and you'll have to share space with her in the back of our truck if you really need a lift to Gerry. She's got the pneumonia."

As he said this, Buzz noticed the Motorola radio on his belt.

"We're headed that way," Norm continued, "but that's about as far as we can take ya. Just allow us
to carry your twenty-two 'til we get there, if you don't mind."

Buzz and the Man nodded.

"Put that damn Remington down, Larry, before you get somebody hurt," the sheriff told his deputy.

He turned back to Buzz and winked. "Where you boys from?"

"Cleveland," Buzz answered.

"Heard any news?"

"We just left there two days ago," Buzz replied. "We'll fill you in on the way down. It's not going well."

Water, cane, ride,
Buzz thought.

And that is how Buzz and the Man received a free ride in a propane (not gasoline) powered utility truck to a one-traffic-light (now out of service) town called Gerry, New York, Population 854 (before the crash, it was 992).

+  +  +

When they got to Gerry, Buzz and the Man made a beeline for the Catholic church, Saint Thomas More, and spoke with the local priest,
a young man named Terry Lang.

The Man prayed in church for almost an hour, while Buzz answered questions for the sheriff and some of the townspeople at the police station.

By the time the Man got to the station, Buzz was in the middle of adjusting Norman Bates's back. Bates had been in a lot of pain, and felt like a new man.

Buzz followed by adjusting Shotgun Larry, then two other residents. In
exchange for this treatment he and the Man received six potatoes, courtesy of a Bible-toting farmer named Norman Bates Sr., who had planted double his usual crop in anticipation of the breakdown.

The town had quickly set up roadblocks and patrols when the lights went out, and so far, the nasty strain of pneumonia, which apparently was not limited to Cleveland, had taken more of a toll than starvation.

The flus,
Buzz thought as he cracked another back.
They used to sweep through the world, wiping out millions, before the advent of modern medicine.

As a boy in New Jersey, he had walked to school by cutting through an ancient graveyard. He often wondered why he would see entire families listed on gravestones–parents, three, four, or five children sometimes–all with the same year of death carved
neatly into the marble. Now he knew.

The flu.
Such a pleasant little word.

Would invisible monsters with names such as smallpox, malaria, rheumatic fever, polio, and typhoid pick up their wide-brush brooms and again begin sweeping bodies off the surface of the earth?

"Boy, my back hasn't felt this good in ages, Dr. Woodward!" Norman told Buzz later. "Wish we had a chiropractor in town."

Wish we
had a drug company here, too,
Buzz thought.

Buzz did not feel it necessary to correct the sheriff. After all, Buzz had not said that he was a chiropractor, only that he knew chiropractic medicine. In fact, he had been practicing basic adjustments on real patients at the clinic for over a year.

In the afternoon, Buzz adjusted and massaged three dozen residents of Gerry. The following afternoon,
loaded down with an entire sack of potatoes, some dried meats, and even a roll of toilet paper, they were escorted fourteen miles east by a young man named Sandy Garciapara (Buzz had adjusted Sandy's mother's back), who knew the hiking trails, to almost halfway to the Allegheny Reservoir. One resident, the owner of a small medical supply store, even gave Buzz a form-fitting canvas brace for his ankle.

The moon was out, and Buzz was chatty as they walked on a path heading south beside the reservoir.

"Don't you see it?" Buzz asked. "It's Divine Providence. Your outdoorsman skills and my chiropractic training are going to get us to Bagpipe!"

The Man grunted.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothin'," the Man said.

+  +  +

Buzz awoke to find the Man digging into the soil with his hunting knife next to an overturned
rock. Buzz rubbed the sleep from his eyes. It was still very cold.

"Worms?" he asked the Man. "Can we eat them?"

"And Jesus told them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat," the Man quoted. "Thought we might take half a day to rest. Have some fish for breakfast. Extend our rations."

And so they fished. The Man caught three catfish in five casts, which they fried and consumed right at
the waterline. Far away, to the north, there was a dingy with another fisherman on it. Buzz waved. The man waved back.

Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Buzz sighed. "I miss coffee. I really miss coffee."

The Man honored him with a grunt.

"Do you miss anything, Hal? You know, from the old world?"

There was no hesitation in the reply.

"Daily Mass."

Buzz felt small.
And I'm complaining about not
having coffee.

"God's handiwork is all around us," Buzz observed.

"Where?"

"The forest. This reservoir. The sun. The air."

"Oh."

Reed of grass in his mouth, the Man reclined back on his elbows and closed his eyes, then took in the warming rays. Buzz layed all the way back, his hands clasped behind his head. During the night, his headache had receded for the first time in the journey.

"On the day
the lights went out, I rejoiced, Buzz. I praised God," he said calmly, his eyes still closed.

This threw Buzz.

"But all the death, the disease. The suffering." It seemed an obvious point to Buzz.

"Four thousand unborn babies were aborted in the United States every twenty-four hours last year. Even more snuffed out by the pill and IUD. When the lights went out, that ended. Whether they know it
or not, the breakdown is an answer to billions of prayers by millions of pro-lifers over twenty-seven years. So I rejoiced."

Well,
Buzz thought, thinking about the pill,
maybe we don't need those drug companies after all.

"Buzz, can I level with you?"

"I'm insulted that you would even ask."

The Man rolled his eyes.

"The question was just a way of starting a serious conversation."

Buzz didn't reply.
I already thought it was pretty serious.

"Buzz, the Lord has blessed our trip. But our good fortune can't last. God won't undo free will. The good weather is coming. People are in shock now, but they'll come out of it. Fifteen, maybe twenty percent of the population has probably died by now. With more to come. One day we're going to wake up to another Shotgun Larry, and this one is going to pull
the trigger."

"I don't want to think about that," Buzz replied after a moment.

"You've got to think about it. You're depending on me too much. I'm not going to make it to Bagpipe. You've got to get mentally and spiritually ready to go it alone."

"You can't know something like that," Buzz responded, trying to keep his voice calm.

"The Lord let me know before your coma. I didn't know the details
then, and I don't know them now. I don't believe I'll live to see the end of April."

Buzz could only think one thought, which came to him as a visual image:
Mel on their wedding night, on the bed, in the Stouffer's Hotel, her skin glistening in the lights reflecting in from the streets of Cleveland.

"Look Hal, no offense," Buzz snapped, "but have you ever considered that some of these sure-fire
things the Lord has been telling you might not be from the Lord–that they might be from you; that they might be coming from your subconscious? Exactly how did the Lord tell you that you'll die before April 30th? Did you hear actual words?"

It sounded like a rebuke. And it was.

The Man was not offended.

"The Lord doesn't tell me things like a mere human being would tell you something. He talks
to me like a God would talk to somebody. It's a way of knowing in your heart. God don't need no
words.
God
is
a Word."

The Man's tone plainly conveyed to Buzz that all this was so patently obvious that it was barely worth mentioning.

Buzz felt, perhaps unfairly, that the Man might as well have been ending every sentence with:
...got that, moron?

"You're worried about Mel," the Man continued. "I'm
telling you this...truth...for her sake, so you'll get ready. You're worried that you won't make it to Bagpipe without me–when you should be worried that you can't make it to Bagpipe without
the Lord."

Got that, moron?
Buzz heard, essentially missing everything–the Man's point, and the Man's motive.

Buzz took a deep breath. He looked at his friend, whose eyes were still closed, still perfectly
relaxed.

"Maybe I'm worried about you, too, huh," Buzz responded after a moment of reflection. "Maybe I just don't like the idea of you dying. I mean, what would I do for a point guard on the Scaps?"

The Man chuckled politely–but didn't address Buzz's fear any further.

The conversation, which seemed to have more words than all their conversations so far, ended.

Dear Lord, don't let the Man die!
Why would you allow the Man to die?

They cleaned up, took turns napping under the cover of the trees away from the waterline, then headed out at noon.

+  +  +

Over the next two weeks, the weather became warmer, even for the mountain terrain they were crossing. They made their way south to Route 59, then east on 59 until it met up with Route 6.

Buzz and the Man brought news from town to town, trading
chiropractic for food, and almost as important, receiving directions and advice on which back roads and hiking paths to take that paralleled Route 6. Mount Alton, East Smethville, Burtville. If the towns had Catholic churches, which every third one did, the Man would plunk himself down in front of the Blessed Sacrament, often convincing the local priest, if one was available, to expose Jesus
in the monstrance. If there wasn't a Catholic church, he sought out the local preacher, and they prayed together.

"Where two or more are gathered in His name, there He shall be," the Man explained. "If I can't have Jesus present in the Host, I'll get Him present with another Christian."

"What's with your friend?" the locals would ask Buzz as he adjusted their backs and healed their pains, often
setting up cushions on a coffee table in the post office or town hall on Main Street (and every town in this part of Pennsylvania had a main street named Main Street–it was a law or something).